Iraq under US Occupation

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In a television interview, former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney explains why the US did not push on to Baghdad during the 1991 Gulf War: “If we’d gone to Baghdad we would’ve been all alone, there wouldn’t have been anyone else with us, it would’ve been a US occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq. Once you… took down Saddam Hussein’s government, then what are you going to put in its place? That’s a very volatile part of the world and if you take down the central government of Iraq you can easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off.… It’s a quagmire if you go that far.… The other thing is casualties. Everyone was impressed that we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action and for their families it wasn’t a cheap war. The question for the president in terms of whether we went on to Baghdad… was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? In our judgment, it was not very many and I think we got it right.” [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8/26/2007]

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences publishes a study, titled “War with Iraq: Costs, Consequences, and Alternatives,” in which one of its authors, D. Nordhaus of Yale University, writes that the Bush administration’s planned invasion of Iraq and post-invasion occupation could cost anywhere from $99 billion to more than $1.9 trillion over a decade. The study notes that the macroeconomic cost of such a military operation could be as high as $400 billion as a result of a disruption in oil markets and an ensuing recession. [Kaysen et al., 12/2002 ; Associated Press, 12/6/2002]

A still from the fake beheading video. [Source: Associated Press]On August 7, 2004, a beheading video is broadcast on Arab television. Western news outlets immediately pick up the story. But the next day, Benjamin Vanderford, a video game designer living in San Francisco, reveals that he created the video. In the video, entitled, “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Slaughters an American,” Vanderford makes a short statement denouncing the US occupation of Iraq. Then a hand with a knife is seen cutting at a motionless man’s neck, but no militants are seen. He says he posted the one-minute video on an online file-sharing network in May, but it took several months before it got posted to a militant Islamist website where other beheading videos had appeared, and then news of it quickly spread. Vanderford says he put the video on the Internet “to just make a statement on these type of videos and how easily they can be faked.” He adds: “I see how it could be considered disrespectful. But I think people, if they look at it, will understand two other big issues it brings up. A small group of disgruntled people in Iraq or Saudi Arabia could just get more attention just by easily releasing something like I did on the Internet.” [Associated Press, 8/8/2004]

An unnamed senior national security professional at one of America’s military-sponsored think tanks tells journalist James Fallows: “Let me tell you my gut feeling. If I can be blunt, the administration is full of sh_t. In my view we are much, much worse off now than when we went into Iraq. That is not a partisan position. I voted for these guys. But I think they are incompetent, and I have had a very close perspective on what is happening. Certainly in the long run we have harmed ourselves. We are playing to the enemy’s political advantage. Whatever tactical victories we may gain along the way, this will prove to be a strategic blunder.”
[Atlantic Monthly, 10/2004]

The fractious and contentious relationship between the White House and the CIA, never good since planning began for the Iraq war (see January 2003), has boiled over into the public eye in recent days, according to a New York Times report. James Pavitt, the former head of the CIA’s Clandestine Service, says he has never seen anything approaching “the viciousness and vindictiveness” of the relationship between the White House and the CIA. In recent days, numerous classified assessments have been leaked to the press by people sympathetic to the CIA (see September 16, 2004, September 28, 2004, and October 4, 2004), “to the considerable embarrassment of the White House.” The White House, in turn, has called the authors of the assessments “pessimists and naysayers,” and dismissed a recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq as based on guesswork (see September 21-23, 2004). Some Republican partisans claim that the CIA is waging an “insurgency” or “vendetta” against the White House, an idea that both White House and CIA officials officially reject. “Wars bring things out in people that sometimes other disputes don’t,” says James Woolsey, a neoconservative and former CIA director who is a strong supporter of the administration’s Iraq and terrorism policies. “But even with the passions of war, I think you ought to keep it within channels.” Another former intelligence official is more critical of the agency: “The agency’s role is to tell the administration what it thinks, not to criticize its policies.” CIA defenders say it is important to set the record straight by revealing the agency’s warnings about the possible dire consequences of an Iraq occupation, warnings which the White House either ignored or mocked. “There was nothing in the intelligence that was a casus belli for war,” Pavitt says, noting that while the CIA might have been wrong about Iraq and WMD, it was much closer to the mark in its prewar warnings about the obstacles that an American occupying force would face in postwar Iraq. But, Pavitt, notes, “[t]he agency is not out to undermine this president.” [New York Times, 10/2/2004] Conservative defenders of the administration angrily attack the CIA for “insubordination” and betrayal, leaving liberals and progressives in the unusual position of defending the agency. [Roberts, 2008, pp. 153]

Knight Ridder Newspapers reports on a leaked CIA assessment that undercuts the White House claim of links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The assessment, requested some months ago by Vice President Cheney, finds no evidence to show that Saddam’s regime ever harbored Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an independent colleague of Osama bin Laden (see April 2002), and finds no evidence of any “collaborative relationship” between the former Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda (see October 2, 2002). In February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations Security Council that al-Zarqawi went to Baghdad for medical treatment and, while there, helped establish a terrorist base in Baghdad (see February 5, 2003). The assessment now shows that claim was incorrect. So was the administration’s claim that al-Zarqawi received safe haven from Hussein. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who in September 2002 called the evidence of links between Hussein and al-Qaeda “bulletproof” (see September 26, 2002), now says, “To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two.” Rumsfeld continues, “I just read an intelligence report recently about one person [al-Zarqawi] who’s connected to al-Qaeda who was in and out of Iraq and there’s the most tortured description of why he might have had a relationship and why he might not have had a relationship.” In June 2003, President Bush called al-Zarqawi “the best evidence of connection” between Iraq and al-Qaeda; after the assessments are leaked, Bush insists that al-Zarqawi “was in and out of Baghdad,” apparently continuing to press the idea that Saddam and al-Qaeda were connected. Al-Zarqawi did spend a lot of time in Iraq, but almost always in the northern sections of Iraq where Saddam’s control did not reach. [Knight Ridder, 10/4/2004] The day after the Knight Ridder report, Vice President Cheney will say during a debate with vice-presidential opponent John Edwards (D-NC) that al-Zarqawi was based in Baghdad both before and after the March 2003 invasion, a claim that is demonstrably false (see October 5, 2004).

CIA Director Porter Goss, known for being dogmatically loyal to the White House (see September 25, 2003 and November-December 2004), responds to the recent spate of leaked CIA memos (see September 16, 2004, September 28, 2004, and October 4, 2004) by issuing a memo reminding agency staff that they should “scrupulously honor our secrecy oath.” The memo is leaked to the press the next day. Goss says, “Intelligence-related issues have become the fodder of partisan food fights and turf-power skirmishes.” Goss warns that agency officials must publicly support Bush administration policies: “As agency employees we do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies,” Goss writes. His intention is, he writes, “to clarify beyond doubt the rules of the road.” Goss’s words may indicate that CIA employees must conform with administration policies and goals, but he also writes, “We provide the intelligence as we see it—and let the facts alone speak to the policymaker.” Many critics of the agency and its leadership say that Goss’s memo is part of his attempt to squelch dissent within the agency’s ranks. “If Goss is asking people to color their views and be a team player, that’s not what people at CIA signed up for,” says a former intelligence official. Ron Wyden (D-OR), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, says that “on issue after issue, there’s a real question about whether the country and the Congress are going to get an unvarnished picture of our intelligence situation at a critical time.” [New York Times, 11/17/2004; Roberts, 2008, pp. 153]

President Bush awards Tenet the Medal of Freedom. [Source: Associated Press]President Bush gives the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former CIA Director George Tenet, former Iraq war leader General Tommy Franks, and former Iraq functionary Paul Bremer. The Medal of Freedom is the highest honor the president can bestow. Bush comments, “This honor goes to three men who have played pivotal roles in great events and whose efforts have made our country more secure and advanced the cause of human liberty.” [Associated Press, 12/14/2001; Washington Post, 12/14/2004] However, the awards will come in for some criticism, as Tenet, CIA director on 9/11, wrongly believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction
(see December 21, 2002), Bremer disbanded the Iraqi army (see May 23, 2003), and Franks, responsible for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, failed to assign enough troops to the hunt for Osama bin Laden, thereby enabling him to escape (see Late October-Early December 2001). [Washington Post, 12/14/2001] John McLaughlin, Tenet’s deputy director, will later say that Tenet “wishes he could give that damn medal back.” [New York Times, 10/2/2006] White House press secretary Scott McClellan will later write that this “well-intentioned gesture designed to create positive impressions of the war seemed to backfire.” Instead of holding these three accountable for their role in the deepening Iraq crisis, Bush hails them as heroes. McClellan will observe: “Wasn’t this supposed to be an administration that prided itself on results and believed in responsibility and accountability? If so, why the rush to hand out medals to people who had helped organize what was now looking like a badly botched, ill-conceived war?” [McClellan, 2008, pp. 250-251] David Wade, a spokesman for Senator John Kerry (D-MA), says, “My hunch is that George Bush wasn’t using the same standard when honoring Tenet and Bremer that was applied to previous honorees.” Previous recipients include human rights advocate Mother Teresa, civil rights icon Rosa Parks, and Pope John Paul II. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) says he “would have reached a different conclusion” on Tenet. “I don’t think [he] served the president or the nation well.” [Associated Press, 12/14/2001] Reporter Steve Coll will later comment: “I presume that for President Bush, it was a signal that he wasn’t making Tenet a scapegoat. It would be the natural thing to do, right? You’ve seen this episode of ‘I, Claudius.’ You know, you put the knife in one side and the medal on the other side, and that’s politics.” And author James Bamford will say: “Tenet [retired], and kept his mouth shut about all the things that went on, about what kind of influence [Vice President Dick] Cheney might have had. They still have a CIA, but all the power is now with his team over at the Pentagon. They’re gathering more power every day in terms of intelligence. So largely, Cheney won.” [PBS Frontline, 6/20/2006] Author and media critic Frank Rich will later write: “The three medals were given to the men who had lost Osama bin Laden (General Tommy Franks), botched the Iraq occupation (Paul Bremer), and called prewar intelligence on Saddam’s WMDs a ‘slam dunk’ (George Tenet). That the bestowing of an exalted reward for high achievement on such incompetents incited little laughter was a measure of how much the administration, buoyed by reelection, still maintained control of its embattled but not yet dismantled triumphalist wartime narrative.” [Rich, 2006, pp. 158]

US Intelligence officers report that some of the insurgents in Iraq are using recent-model Beretta 02 pistols that have no serial numbers. The numbers have not been removed; the guns came off a production line with no number. “Analysts suggest the lack of serial numbers indicates that the weapons were intended for intelligence operations or terrorist cells with substantial government backing. Analysts speculate that these guns are probably from either Mossad or the CIA. Analysts speculate that agent provocateurs may be using the untraceable weapons even as US authorities use insurgent attacks against civilians as evidence of the illegitimacy of the resistance.”
[United Press International, 6/6/2005]

Neoconservative academic Meyrav Wurmser, the director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute, says the problem with the Iraq war is that it is confined to Iraq. “It’s a mess, isn’t it?” she says. “My argument has always been that this war is senseless if you don’t give it a regional context.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 344-345]

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius. [Source: The Source]An extended tornado outbreak begins on May 4 and culminates with an EF5 “supercell” in Greensburg, Kansas that razes 95% of the city and kills 12 and injures at least 60. [ABC News, 5/9/2007] Governor Kathleen Sebelius notes that “what we’re really missing is equipment. And that is putting a strain on recoveries like this one.” These critical comments are in response to the deployment of the bulk of the Kansas National Guard personnel and equipment to Iraq. [MSNBC, 6/4/2007]

Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr orders his militia, the Mahdi Army, to suspend offensive operations for six months following the deaths of over 50 Shi’ite Muslims during recent sectarian fighting in the holy city of Karbala. “I direct the Mahdi army to suspend all its activities for six months until it is restructured in a way that helps honor the principles for which it is formed,” al-Sadr says in a statement issued by his office in the nearby city of Najaf. The statement continues, “We call on all Sadrists to observe self-restraint, to help security forces control the situation and arrest the perpetrators and sedition mongers, and urge them to end all forms of armament in the sacred city.” Asked if the unexpected order meant no attacks on American troops, as well as a ban on Shia infighting, a senior Sadr aide says, “All kinds of armed actions are to be frozen, without exception.” [Daily Telegraph, 8/31/2007] Just three weeks before, Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno talked of the US concerns over heavy casualties inflicted on US troops by Shi’ite militia fighters using new roadside bombs called explosively formed penetrators (EFPs). [New York Times, 8/8/2007] US, British, and Iraqi officials are apparently surprised by the sudden announcement, and military officials are cautious about accepting the truth of al-Sadr’s ceasefire order. British military spokesman Major Mike Shearer says, “We don’t know how real this is and I suspect it will take some significant time to see if violence against us does diminish as a result.” But, two days after the announcement, the US military puts out a statement that calls the ceasefire order “encouraging,” and says it will allow US and Iraqi forces to “intensify their focus on al-Qaeda in Iraq… without distraction from [Mahdi Army] attacks.” It adds: “Moqtada al-Sadr’s declaration holds the potential to reduce criminal activity and help reunite Iraqis separated by ethno-sectarian violence and fear. [The ceasefire] would also be an important step in helping Iraqi authorities focus greater attention on achieving the political and economic solutions necessary for progress and less on dealing with criminal activity, sectarian violence, kidnappings, assassinations, and attacks on Iraqi and coalition forces.” Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubbaie is carefully optimistic: “I will see on the ground what is going to happen. It is good news if it is true. If it happens it will reduce violence in the country a great deal.” Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s office says, “This initiative is an encouraging step toward consolidating security and stability throughout the country and an opportunity for the suspension of the work of the rest of the militias in various political and ideological affiliations to preserve the unity, independence and sovereignty of Iraq.” Al-Sadr does not control all of the Shi’ite militias in the country; those groups do not follow al-Sadr’s lead in suspending hostilities. However, the Mahdi Army is considered by the Pentagon to be the biggest threat to stability in Iraq, even more so than al-Qaeda. In recent months, Mahdi-inflicted casualties have dropped in and around Baghdad, as al-Sadr’s fighters have left the capital to avoid the military crackdown, and gone to Shi’a-dominated southern Iraq. [Daily Telegraph, 8/31/2007; CNN, 9/1/2007] In the weeks and months that follow, US casualties indeed drop; administration and military officials do not credit the ceasefire, but instead showcase the drop in casualties as proof the surge is working (see Early November, 2007).

Presidential candidate John McCain (R-AZ) tells an audience that Iraq is only the first of other wars the US will be forced to fight. “It’s a tough war we’re in,” he says. “It’s not going to be over right away. There’s going to be other wars.… I’m sorry to tell you, there’s going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars.” McCain does not say who exactly the US will be fighting in the near future. He does say: “And right now—we’re gonna have a lot of PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] to treat, my friends. We’re gonna have a lot of combat wounds that have to do with these terrible explosive IEDs that inflict such severe wounds. And my friends, it’s gonna be tough, we’re gonna have a lot to do.” McCain has already said that the US could be in Iraq for the next hundred years (see January 3-27, 2008). [Huffington Post, 1/27/2008]

In remarks to the National Religious Broadcasters Association, President Bush misrepresents two important aspects of the US-led occupation of Iraq. Misrepresenting the 'Surge of Their Own' - Referring to the so-called “surge” of US troops into Iraq (see January 10, 2007), Bush says: “As you can imagine, during that period of time a lot of folks were wondering, is America going to stay with us? Do they understand our deep desire to live in freedom? Can we count on them? And when they found out they could, they launched a surge of their own. Increasing numbers of Sunni leaders have turned against the terrorists and begun to reclaim their communities… . Folks who were involved in the insurgency have now decided they want to be a part of their government… . I strongly believe the surge is working, and so do the Iraqis.” Bush is referring to the Iraqi counterattack against al-Qaeda in Iraq and other Islamist terrorists—the so-called “Anbar Awakening.” He is wrong in saying that the Iraqis “launched a surge of their own” in response to the US troop escalation. The “Iraqi surge” against al-Qaeda in Iraq predates the US surge by months. In fact, two years before the “Iraqi surge,” Bush had rejected offers of similar assistance from Sunni leaders eager to bring Sunni-led terrorism in Iraq to a close. Instead, the Sunni leaders took action without US approval. Bush is now linking the Sunni initiative to the US “surge,” and in the process misrepresents both the chronological chain of the events and the forces driving the “Iraqi surge.” Misrepresenting the Effectiveness of the US 'Surge' - Bush also says that some US forces are coming home as “a return on our success” in the surge. That implies that because the “surge” is successful, Bush and US military commanders are beginning to bring some troops home. “And as a return on our success, as we get more successful, troops are able to come home,” he says: “They’re not coming home based upon defeat, or based upon opinion polls, or based upon focus groups, or based upon politics. They’re coming home because we’re successful.” In reality, Bush has been quite reluctant to bring any troops home, only grudgingly giving way to the recommendations of US commanders such as General David Petraeus, the head of military operations in Iraq, and Admiral Michael Mullen, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Petraeus, Fallon, and other US military commanders have long said that the surge is designed to be temporary, with drawdown dates of early 2008 built into the planning from the outset. [Salon, 3/11/2008]

An Iraqi journalist hurls a shoe at President Bush. [Source: BBC]An Iraqi journalist throws a pair of shoes at President Bush during a press conference in Baghdad. In Arab culture, throwing shoes at a person, or showing them the sole of your shoe, is considered a grave insult—shoes are considered ritually unclean. During the conference, Muntadar al-Zaidi, a correspondent for Cairo-based al-Baghdadiya TV, stands up, shouts, “This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog!” and hurls the first shoe. He then shouts, “This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq!” and hurls the second shoe. Bush ducks away from the thrown shoes, and both miss their target. Al-Zaidi is wrestled to the floor by security guards within seconds of throwing the second shoe, removed from the room and beaten, and taken into custody where he is soon arrested. Bush brushes aside the incident, telling the remaining journalists, “That’s what people do in a free society, draw attention to themselves,” as al-Zaidi’s screaming can be heard from outside the conference room. Bush flew to Baghdad for a surprise visit. During the momentary chaos after the shoes are hurled, his press secretary, Dana Perino, is struck in the eye with a microphone stand; the blow is accidental. Bush, in the last weeks of his presidency, says that the war in Iraq is not yet over, and more work remains to be done. He will later joke, “If you want the facts, it’s a size 10 shoe that he threw.” Other Iraqi journalists say the attack was symbolic, and note that Iraqis threw shoes and used them to beat statues of Saddam Hussein after his overthrow. Bush says being pelted with shoes may be one of the “weirdest” moments of his presidency. He is accompanied to the press conference by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. [New York Times, 12/14/2008; BBC, 12/15/2008; BBC, 12/15/2008; USA Today, 12/15/2008] Bush later compares the incident to the disruption of an earlier White House press conference with Chinese President Hu Jintao by a Falun Gong follower, and says it would be wrong to read the feelings of an entire country into the single instance. “I don’t think you can take one guy and say this represents a broad movement in Iraq,” he says. He notes that the other Iraqi journalists in the room “were very apologetic and said this doesn’t represent the Iraqi people.” [USA Today, 12/15/2008]Others' Reactions - A former colleague of Al-Zaidi, Haider Nassar, explains, “He had bad feelings about the coalition forces.” Of al-Zaidi’s actions, Nassar says it is a poor way to establish his points. “This is so silly; it’s just the behavior of an individual,” Nassar says. “He destroyed his future.” [New York Times, 12/14/2008] Adil Shamoo, an Iraqi analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, says of the incident: “I think we should go beyond the shoe and think about the fact that the US should respect Iraq’s sovereignty in order to regain respect of the Iraqi people and the Arab world. I think Bush has increased terrorism against the United States and instablity in the Middle East because of his policies.” [Al Jazeera, 12/15/2008]History of Shoes Used to Insult Americans - This is not the first time Iraqis have used shoes to insult American officials. Until the 2003 invasion, a likeness of Bush’s father, former President George H. W. Bush, was prominently featured in a floor mosaic near the front door of Baghdad’s Rashid Hotel; visitors would tread on it in symbolic punishment for alleged “war crimes” committed during the 1991 Gulf War. (The likeness has since been removed.) In 2004, the corpses of four American mercenaries killed and strung up on a bridge in Fallujah (see March 31, 2004) were beaten with shoes by local citizens. Posters of the current president, adorned with shoes, are common sights in many parts of Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been given the insulting nickname of “Kundera,” meaning shoe, by many Middle Easterners. [BBC, 12/15/2008; USA Today, 12/15/2008] In late January, an Iraqi orphanage will unveil a “shoe monument” in honor of al-Zaidi’s act (see January 29, 2009). Al-Zaidi will be freed from prison in September 2009 (see September 14, 2009).

The Bush ‘shoe monument,’ unveiled at an orphanage in Tikrit. [Source: CNN]A monument to the shoes thrown at President Bush (see December 14, 2008) is unveiled during a ceremony at an orphanage in Tikrit, Iraq. The monument is a sculpture created by Laith al-Amiri with the assistance of the orphans at the facility. Many people in Iraq and throughout the Arab world regard the shoe thrower, journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi, as a hero, and many are calling for his release from prison. The monument is, essentially, a fiberglass shoe nearly 12 feet high and coated with copper. Faten Abdulqader al-Naseri, the orphanage director, says: “Those orphans who helped the sculptor in building this monument were the victims of Bush’s war. The shoe monument is a gift to the next generation to remember the heroic action by the journalist. When the next generation sees the shoe monument, they will ask their parents about it. When their parents will start talking about the hero Muntadar al-Zaidi, who threw his shoe at George W. Bush during his unannounced farewell visit.” [CNN, 1/29/2009]

An Iraqi war widow. [Source: Johan Spanner / New York Times]Iraqi women, particularly war widows, have an extremely difficult time surviving in their country, according to a profile by the New York Times. Of Iraqi women between 15 and 80 years of age, 740,000, or around one in 11, are estimated to be widows; only about 120,000 of those widows receive any governmental aid. Depressed Living Conditions - Many of the widows profiled by the Times live, either alone or with the remnants of their families, in a trailer park for war widows in a poor section of Baghgad. Many other widows are not so fortunate; the trailer park, which houses 750 people, is among the very few aid programs available for the widows. Many of those widows and their children live in public parks or inside gas station restrooms. The sight of war widows begging on the street—or available as potential recruits for insurgents—is an everyday occurrence. Potential Insurgency Recruits - Times reporter Timothy Williams writes: “As the number of widows has swelled during six years of war, their presence on city streets begging for food or as potential recruits by insurgents has become a vexing symbol of the breakdown of Iraqi self-sufficiency. Women who lost their husbands had once been looked after by an extended support system of family, neighbors, and mosques. But as the war has ground on, government and social service organizations say the women’s needs have come to exceed available help, posing a threat to the stability of the country’s tenuous social structures.” 'Too Many' Widows to Help - Leila Kadim, a managing director in the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, acknowledges that the situation will not change soon. “We can’t help everybody,” she says. “There are too many.” Alternatives - Some engage in “temporary marriages,” Shi’ite-sanctioned unions lasting anywhere from an hour to a year and usually based on sex, to become eligible for government, religious, or tribal leaders. Others have become prostitutes. Others have joined the insurgency in return for steady pay. The Iraqi military says dozens of women have become suicide bombers, and that number is expected to increase. Minimal Government Assistance - The government’s current stipend for widows is an ungenerous $50/month and an additional $12/month for each child; efforts to increase that stipend have not made progress. And only about one in six widows receive that small amount of money. Widows and their advocates say that to receive benefits they must either have political connections or agree to temporary marriages with the powerful men who control the distribution of government funds. Samira al-Mosawi, chair of the women’s affairs committee in Parliament, says: “It is blackmail. We have no law to treat this point. Widows don’t need temporary support, but a permanent solution.” Paying Men to Marry Widows - One solution has been proposed by Mazin al-Shihan, director of the Baghdad Displacement Committee. Al-Shihan has introduced a proposal to pay men to marry widows. When asked why money shouldn’t go directly to the widows, al-Shihan laughs. “If we give the money to the widows, they will spend it unwisely because they are uneducated and they don’t know about budgeting,” he says. “But if we find her a husband, there will be a person in charge of her and her children for the rest of their lives. This is according to our tradition and our laws.” [New York Times, 2/22/2009]

The lawyer for Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi, jailed in December 2008 for throwing shoes at President Bush (see December 14, 2008), announces that his client will be freed from prison on September 15. Many Iraqis and other Middle Eastern citizens have called for al-Zaidi’s release since his conviction and incarceration, and consider the journalist a hero for expressing his anger and contempt for the former president, though others consider the act a violation of the tradition of honoring the guest. Al-Zaidi is completing a one-year prison sentence for “assaulting a foreign head of state on an official visit to Iraq”; his term was reduced from the original three-year sentence, and he is being released early for good behavior. “We are happy, like any detainee’s family would be happy for the release of its son after the bitter time he spent in jail,” says the journalist’s brother, Dhirgham al-Zaidi. [CNN, 9/14/2009]

Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence analyst who is apparently the source of much material released by Wikileaks, is arrested by US Army Criminal Investigation Division officials at Forward Operating Base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad. [Wired News, 6/6/2010]

Agents from the FBI’s Oakland Field Office tell Adrian Lamo, a source working for the FBI, that Wilileaks leaker Bradley Manning was arrested yesterday in Iraq (see May 26, 2010). Manning and Lamo seem to have some sort of relationship and, after becoming aware of Manning’s leaks, Lamo had reported this to the FBI, which meets him for a second time on this day to discuss Manning. [Wired News, 6/6/2010]

Charges are filed against Bradley Manning, a US soldier formerly based in Iraq accused of leaking much material to WikiLeaks. The charges cover the leaking of a video of a 2007 US attack in Iraq that killed innocent people as well as 150,000 diplomatic cables. Manning is officially charged with four counts of violating Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for disobeying an order or regulation, and eight counts of violating Article 134, a general charge for misconduct, which in this case involves breaking federal laws against disclosing classified information. Manning now faces an Article 32 investigation, the military’s equivalent of a civilian grand jury, into charges that he mishandled classified information “with reason to believe the information could cause injury to the United States.” That investigation could lead to administrative punishments or more likely, given the gravity of the charges, a court-martial. [New York Times, 7/6/2010]

Bradley Manning, an Army whistleblower who allegedly leaked thousands of documents to WikiLeaks, is stripped naked overnight in the brig he is being held at. According to David E. Coombs, Manning’s lawyer, in the morning, Manning is forced to stand naked outside his cell for inspection, after which his clothes are returned to him. “This type of degrading treatment is inexcusable and without justification,” Coombs writes the next day. “It is an embarrassment to our military justice system and should not be tolerated. Private Manning has been told that the same thing will happen to him again tonight. No other detainee at the brig is forced to endure this type of isolation and humiliation.” First Lieutenant Brian Villiard, a Marine spokesman, comments that a brig duty supervisor had ordered Manning’s clothing taken from him. He says that the step was “not punitive,” is in accordance with brig rules, but he cannot say more. [New York Times, 3/3/2011]

US State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley calls the treatment of alleged whistleblower Bradley Manning “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.” The remarks are made at a talk at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology about how new media are impacting foreign policy, during a question-and-answer session. Crowley is asked about what he thinks about WikiLeaks and the US “torturing a prisoner in a military brig.” After criticising the conditions of Manning’s detention, Crowley adds, “None the less Bradley Manning is in the right place,” and goes on to say that in Washington’s view, “there is sometimes a need for secrets… for diplomatic progress to be made.” When the remarks become news, Crowley will issue a clarification: “What I said was my personal opinion. It does not reflect an official [US government] policy position. I defer to the Department of Defense regarding the treatment of Bradley Manning.” [BBC, 3/12/2011]

The Nobel Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, along with Physicians for Social Responsibility and Physicians for Global Survival, releases a report, which concludes that the “war on terrorism” has resulted in around 1.3 million deaths. The study examined direct and indirect deaths caused by more than a decade of US-led war in three countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, but did not include deaths in other countries attacked by American and allied military forces, including Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and Syria. To estimate the casualty figures, the investigators did a literature review of all the major studies that had been published on this topic before. The report estimates that “the war has, directly or indirectly, killed around 1 million people in Iraq, 220,000 in Afghanistan, and 80,000 in Pakistan… this is only a conservative estimate. The total number of deaths… could also be in excess of 2 million, whereas a figure below 1 million is extremely unlikely.” [IPPNW, PSR, and PGS, 3/19/2015, pp. 15 ]

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